Teachers Plan Ahead for New School Year
How to Prepare for Classes Before School Starts
Jul 22, 2009
Summer vacation provides teachers with the opportunity to not only recharge their batteries, but also to reflect on the previous school year and plan ahead for the fall. Here are some ways teachers can focus their attention to confidently start the next school year.
Reflect on Personal Strengths
Now’s the time for teachers to reflect on their own personality, energy level, organizational skills, ability to communicate with parents and members of the community as well as other personal strengths. The reason for this is two-fold. First, by identifying personal strengths, teachers can also identify areas which can be improved. Second, teachers who identify their strengths can consider how to maximize these in the classroom.
For instance, if a teacher is fairly social or well-connected in the community through associations, organizations or clubs, she might invite a community member to speak to her class on a topic within the member’s area of expertise. Examples include
- a financial advisor could talk to high schoolers about learning to budget or balance a checkbook
- a children’s novelist can speak about how to maintain a consistent point of view when writing
- an engineer can talk about how mathematics impacts his work
Community members can motivate students and help them connect learning to their future goals.
Improve Teaching Materials
Teachers often determine ways to improve their materials during the school year. However, they often lack the time to implement these changes. Imagine that one teacher noted that a lesson-initiating activity did not capture students’ attention or caused unforeseen logistical problems. Another teacher identified several typos or unfair questions in a teacher-made test. Yet another teacher experienced consistent problems with distribution and collection of classroom materials. Teachers can develop a proactive system to deal with myriad difficulties associated with materials. To develop a system, teachers can:
- Take notes in their planning book to identify a problem and highlight the observation in a color reserved solely for this purpose. Whenever a teacher sees a green highlighter, she knows it invites a summer project.
- Highlight tests or worksheets containing errors and keep them in a folder entitled “needs improvement”. These errors should be consistently highlighted in the same color as well.
- Brainstorm ways to improve classroom work flow. Perhaps the teacher’s desk should be moved to a different location within the classroom, or two students can be identified to distribute and collect papers for each class period. This task can be assigned as a “reward” to most improved students at the beginning of each quarter.
Prepare Interactive Activities
Teachers are often too busy during the year to design interactive or cooperative learning activities. It’s helpful to remember that students learn best by doing, rather than merely listening. Therefore, teachers should conduct research, brainstorm and reflect on ways to alter existing lessons in a way that more actively engages students. To do so, teachers can ask themselves the following questions:
- What way, other than lecture, can students become introduced to new material?
- What activities can be planned in advance that will help students review important concepts or prepare for tests and quizzes?
- Which units contain material that can be taught through student-led instruction?
- How can groups be arranged so that each student has a specific, clearly-defined goal?
- How can students with learning challenges be better encouraged to participate in class?
By reflecting on ways to improve for the new school year, teachers will resist the tendency to teach the same way each year. Instead, teachers will challenge themselves to find new ways to solve old problems as well as collaborate and enlist creative problem solving that will result in improved student-centered learning.
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